The Platypus Review issue #11 March 2009 (March 15, 2009)

Issue #11 /March 2009

Can Neo-liberalism continue after the crisis?

Observations on the ideological recovery in France and the United States

AshLeigh Campi

IT HAS BEEN NOTED that the current economic crisis
is of a scale unprecedented in the history of advanced
capitalism. Today, three decades since the first stages of
a transition of world markets through the expansion of fi-
nance capital, we face the first disruption of the system on
a global scale. As is by now well known, the effects of the
crisis have reached across economic sectors and across
the world, displaying the interconnectedness of dispa-
rate societies, whose structure and social trajectory are
bound up in the development of capitalism. The extension
of global markets, and their force as the major medium
conditioning interaction and material exchange between
societies has long been described by liberal economic and
political thinkers as a historical development that was at
once progressive and uncontestable: the invisible hand that
insured the stability and equitability of markets was also
seen as a politically neutral source of economic reason.
Warning against the ideological and tendentious charac-
ter of socialist politics, proponents of liberal economics
lauded the disinterested scientific clarity of pure economic
decision-making. In deferring disagreement over the di-
verse paths towards social goals, the science of economic
growth became a decisive tool in circumscribing political
debate.

During the most recent period of long-term economic
stability in the United States, free market ideology was
passed off as common sense. With predictions of 'un-
limited growth' by market observers, inflated real-estate
values propping up value across markets, and easy access
to credit caused by an explosion of high risk lending, the
need to articulate an alternative to free market politics was
obscured.

Rupturing the collective naTvete that facilitated the tri-
umph of neo-liberalism, the current economic unraveling
was immediately recognized as one in a series that spans

the history of advanced capitalism. As is requisite in times
of crisis, critiques of the outgoing political and economic
status quo have come from a range of social spheres,
professions, and political camps. Certain general and
undeniable facts form the base of discourses in the United
States, the Western world, and in poorer and less stable
regions around the globe: the crisis is causing vast suffer-
ing and deprivation, which is felt most acutely by the social
sectors most removed from the spheres in which the crisis
was produced; the crisis reveals the political err in yielding
debate to the limits imposed by liberal-capitalist ideology.
It is this second fact that asserts itself when considering
the French and American responses to the present crisis.

An account of recent political history appears to have
been consolidated in recent months among critics of liber-
alism. This story diagnoses some economic fundamentals
which have become visible in the wake of the crisis: finan-
cial markets act based on wagers on potential profit; there
is no intrinsic moderation in financial markets that holds
profits in relative equivalence to the growth and contrac-
tions of other economic sectors; over-production of value
through capital speculation will result in crises of capital-
ization and affect all areas of economic activity In analyses
offered by both the Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy
administrations this account of economic events— irrefut-
able, if incomplete— boils down to two supposed causes
of the crisis that in turn predetermine the corresponding
policy responses. These two causes are lack of regula-
tion and the distinct, but related, issue of inflated wages
and earnings in the financial sector In televised speeches
and statements, both presidents spoke with conviction
asserting their intentions to arm the state with increased
oversight and regulatory capabilities in order to amend
these problems.

This response falls far short of holding the founding
ideals of neoliberal governance up for public scrutiny.
In his inaugural address, Obama expressed his hope for
the future with the encouraging assertion that "American
workers are still productive." The fact that this phrase
appears unremarkable or even apt speaks to the contin-
ued purchase ofa vision of society that triumphed in the
age of capitalist democracy. Even if Obama was merely
describing his vision of economic recovery, his statement
affirms economic activity as the primary form of mediation
between individuals in modern society, including on the
level of politics. The optimism of this vision hinges on the
recovered growth and profitability of American enterprises,
which is sustained in part by the continued suppression
of wages in the United States. Both through employment

policy hostile to organized labor and collective bargaining,
and through strict immigration policy that helps maintain
the illegal status of many employees in the manufacturing,
hospitality and service industries, employees in the United
States are subjected to wages depressed often below the
legal minimum.

In France, many union members, leftist party members
and activists, as well as intellectuals, artists, professionals
and public officials have mobilized to critique the path to
economic recovery centered on the vitality of private en-
terprise. An estimated 1 .08 million protestors throughout
France turned out on January 29''' in support ofa one-day
general strike. The strike was called through an agree-
ment by all of France's major unions, and was followed by
the traditionally well-organized public sector as well as
private sector employees of banks, the media, the stock
exchange, and the cultural sector The central aim of the
mobilization was to criticize President Sarkozy's focus on
aid to private businesses and his insufficient attention to
the rising rate of unemployment in France.

Notable for its large turnout, and for the participation
by many individuals and groups who do not commonly
engage in politics, the protest succeeded in bringing the
widespread disapproval of the present government's politi-
cal agenda to popular consciousness. The demands articu-
lated by protesters centered on preservation of socialist
state policies such as programs that aid the unemployed,
support and funding for public education, as well as job
security in the public sector

Beyond the Immediate economic demands expressed
in the march, many in attendance came to condemn the
politics of the current administration for their antagonism
towards the principles of social solidarity. This claim, while
more difficult to support empirically, approaches a more
profound critique of the neoliberal model of economic
development. The ability of the French left to mobilize a
resistance to the economic liberalization taking place un-
der the current administration attests to the maintenance
of leftist politics in France, both through more diffuse
inheritances in academia and culture, as well as through
structures such as unions and political parties which
sustain leftist ideologies in increasingly hostile political
environments.

Despite the ambition and vision that has been main-
tained in France on a level unmatched by the left in the
United States, and despite the force of the economic crisis-
which laid bare the insufficiency of a politics that is subor-
dinated to the growth dynamic of capitalism-the left is not
adequately equipped to seize this moment of ideological

opening. The urgency of the economic situation leaves
those who envision a socialist politics obliged to rearticu-
late the same state-centric politics that historically formed
the grounds for the welfare state and brought about the
enfeebled opposition to liberal-capitalism that views the
state as a social benefactor It is this version of politics,
circumscribed by economic necessity, which keeps the left
from offering an adequate critique of liberal-capitalism,
even at a moment of globalized economic crisis.

In the absence of an alternative political vision and
strategy advanced by the left, neo-liberal economic pre-
scriptions and political ideologies are driving the recovery
from the crisis. At present, the continued strength of the
crisis is resulting in severe economic slowdown in the
global economic centers of the West, as well as in coun-
tries around the world that integrated into global markets
only in recent decades. The British Prime Minister Brown
recently opined, "rebuilding global financial stability is a
global challenge that needs global solutions." It is with this
understanding that Brown and Obama have endeavored
to launch a "global new deal," which aims to ensure "that
every country that wishes to participate in the international
financial system agrees common principles for financial
regulation, coordinated internationally, and changes to
their own banking system that will bring us shared pros-
perity once again." (1) Following an emergency summit
of the European Union on March 1^', President Sarkozy
echoed this oxymoron of political relations conditioned by
the rules of international finance in stating, "If someone
needs solidarity, they can count on their partners... .Their
partners also need to count on them to follow certain basic
rules." [21

Both the 'global new deal,' and the emergency mea-
sures sketched out by the European Union outline a path
to economic recovery in which 'international coordination'
will continue to allow the wealthiest countries to lay out
the terms for the global economy. With many poorer coun-
tries forced to borrow on international capital markets to
refinance old debt or take out new loans, the prescription
for economic recovery portends the future of neo-liberal-
ism. For those wish to forge political solidarity across
states, the response must be to build the structures and
institutions in which political and economic thought of
sophistication and influence can be developed, so that the
next time an economic crisis creates an opening for poli-
tics, the Left will be equipped to offer an alternative. IP

1 Brown, Gordon. Times Online. "The Special ReLationstiip is Going
Global." March 1.2009.

2 Dougherty, Donald. New York Times. "E.U. Leaders Turn to IMF
Amid Financial Crisis." February 22, 2009.

The Platypus Review/
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Taking stock of the multifaceted universe of positions
and goals that constitute Left politics today, we are left
with the disquieting suspicion that perhaps a deeper
commonality underlies this apparent variety: what
exists today is built on the desiccated remains of what
was once felt to be possible.

In order to make sense of the present, we find it
necessary to disentangle the vast accumulation of
positions on the Left, and to evaluate their saliency
for an emancipatory politics of the present. Doing this
work implies a reconsideration of what we mean by
'the Left".

This task necessarily begins from what we see as a
prevalent feature of the Left today: a general disen-
chantment with the present state of progressive poli-
tics. We feel that this disenchantment cannot be cast
off by sheer will, by "carrying on the fight," but must be
addressed and itself made an object of critique. Thus
we begin with what immediately confronts us.

The editorial board of The Platypus Review is
motivated by a sense that the very concepts of the
'political" and the "Left" have become so inclusive as
to be meaningless. The Review seeks to be a forum
among a variety of tendencies and approaches to these
categories of thought and action— not out of a concern
with inclusion for its own sake, but rather to provoke
productive disagreement and to open shared goals as
sites of contestation. In this way, the recriminations
and accusations arising from political disputes of the
past might be elevated to an ongoing critique that
seeks to clarify its object.

The editorial board wishes to provide an ongoing pub-
lic forum wherein questioning and reconsidering one's
own convictions is not seen as a weakness, but as part
of the necessary work of building a revolutionary politics.
We hope to create and sustain a space for interrogating
and clarifying the variety of positions and orientations
currently represented on the political Left, in which
questions may be raised and discussions pursued that
do not find a place within existing Left discourses, lo-
cally or Internationally. As long as submissions exhibit a
genuine commitment to this project, all kinds of content
will be considered for publication.

The Platypus Review is funded by:
The University of Chicago Student Government
School of the Art Institute of Chicago Student Government
The Platypus Affiliated Society

Submission guidelines

Articles can range in length from 750-1 ,500 words. We will
consider longer pieces but prefer that they be submitted
as proposals.

Please send article submissions and any inquiries about this
project to: platypusl917webzlneldyahoogroups.com

Staff

Senior Editor:
Ian Morrison

Editors:
Tana Forrester
Pam C. Nogales C.
Laurie Rojas
Soren Whited

Editorial Advisor:
Spencer A. Leonard

Designer:
Laurie Rojas

Copy Editor:
Tana Forrester

Web Editor;
Laurie Rojas

www.platypus1917.org

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The

Platypus Review #

Issue #11 I March 2009

1 Why the U.S. stimulus package is bound to fail

David Harvey

2 Can Neo-liberalism continue after the crisis?

Observations on the ideoLogical recovery in France and the United States
AshLeigh Campi

2 Remarks on Chris Cutrone's Iraq and the election:

the fog of "anti-war" politics

Tuomas NevanLinna

3 Going it alone

Christopher Hitchens and the death of the Left
Spencer A. Leonard

www.pLatypus1917.org

Remarks on Chris Cutrone's

Iraq and the election: the fog
of "anti-war" politics

Tuonnas NevanLinna

I WAS INTRIGUED TO FIND in The Platypus Review #7 a
commentary by Chris Cutrone on the U.S. role in world
politics. I found it more sophisticated and original than
anything I had previously come across in the mainstream
media either here or in Europe.

Before launching my machine, I would like to situate
myself. I'm a foreigner, philosopher of sorts, and not a
student any more (That means I'm old.). I have lived in the
us for only two months. I come from Finland, a country
which is in many senses the exact opposite of the U.S.:
tiny, internationally insignificant, linguistically isolated,
and culturally homogeneous. Our religious right-wing
- indeed any extreme right wing - is trifling. In fact it would
not be too great an exaggeration to claim that Finland has
politically incarnated, for the last fifty years or so, the wet
dream of U.S. left-of-center -Democrats.'

American patriots, both Republican and Democrat, tend
to cherish the idea of the U.S. being the shining beacon of
morals and democracy on Earth. I have yet to encounter
a single soul outside the U.S. who would agree. Rather,
the U.S. is considered an unequal, structurally racist and
imperialist banana democracy with its too -short-a -step
from slavery to the partial successes of the civil rights
movement, the lack of equal general education, the lob-
byist-controlled corrupt governing, the semi-open ballot
sabotage, the state of exception-power of the executive
branch, the reprehensible CIA-coups and the unilateral
military interventions.

The idea of the U.S. being the ultimate power fighting
for democracy on the global scene is doomed to sound
obscene. If there were elections in Belarus an interna-
tional delegation of electoral monitors would be sent. Why
would the same not be done with regard to the U.S.? Just
think about Florida in 2000 - and it is not the only possible
example.'

Last but not least, there has always been, from the
European point of view^ , a lot more conservative whining
about the excesses of the welfare state than genuine and
stable welfare state structures in the U.S.''

It must be underscored that this attitude does not
stem from any irrational "anti-Americanism". Firstly, the
harshness of the European criticism is the obverse of the
fact that the U.S. is regarded as one of "us"; as a country
from which we are supposed to expect more. Secondly, the
rest of the world does appreciate America, only on different
grounds than the U.S. patriots do, namely for "aesthetical"
reasons.^

What I have stated thus far compresses exactly the
received Europeanish pseudo-progressive wisdom that
Cutrone wants, in his article, to reject, or at least call

into question. His point of view, certainly, is not that of an
American patriot. Instead, Cutrone points out that the Left
in general has been confused and self-contradictory in its
opposition to U.S. imperialism. Furthermore, Cutrone em-
phasizes that Europeans in particular have been self-righ-
teous, double-faced and irresponsible regarding the role of
the U.S. in present-day global capitalism. As for the U.S.,
the anti-war rhetoric of the Democrats, claims Cutrone,
has been unprincipled and opportunistic.

Cutrone asks, what and on what grounds does the
anti-war movement actually oppose? Is it opposing any
"imperialist" intervention whatsoever? Or any unilateral
intervention by the U.S. ? Or any intervention that fails or
is not efficient enough? And is the argument that the US
should not "spread democracy" supposed to be a progres-
sive or a conservative argument?

The real reason for the occupation in 2003, according to
Cutrone, was that Iraq had become a failed state. Sooner
or later, someone had to intervene. This is where the Bush
administration comes in: in doing what someone would
have had to do anyway, it ultimately acted "responsibly".
U.S. companies surely have profited from the intervention
but some capitalists would have profited anyway, so why
bother? All the other options concerning Iraq would not
have been less "imperialistic" or "capitalistic". And what if
the Bush policy succeeds? Then what will the basis for op-
position to U.S. "imperialism"? These are good questions,
and all too easily ignored by the inverse self-aggrandize-
ment *of the Europeans.

Francis Fukuyama has formulated a critique of the Iraq
war which is based on the notion of its "necessary" failure
- necessary, because there was no plan for the day after
Fukuyama labels the brand of neo-conservatism he does
not want to subscribe to [any more) as "Wilsonianism
minus international institutions." Invented by Reagan, this
doctrine has undergone a revival in the Bush administra-
tion. Against this doctrine Fukuyama advocates "realistic
Wilsonianism"; the notion that the spreading of democracy
cannot rely on naked military force but has to take into ac-
count the local cultural factors, the specific history and the
developmental phase of societal institutions of the country
in question. Fukuyama 's argument is not opportunistic.
although it is based on the Iraq war being a failure. He
makes a systematic Straussian point.

I venture to outline a basic intuition behind a typical
European counter-reaction to the Iraq war It boils down
to three points: firstly, the Reaganist-Bushian doctrine is
not just unilateral but exceptionalistic; secondly it has a
nationalistic agenda, which if necessary, is covered up by
downright lies and finally it is counter-productive. These
points are well-rehearsed, of course.

The doctrine is unilateral, because it disregards inter-
national law.'' As Fukuyama puts it: the Bush administra-
tion had made it clear that the U.S. would not be bound by
what the Security Council did. Also, the notion of pre-emp-
tive war is not only a fundamental revision of the Westpha-
lian tradition of international law but also a tacit endorse-
ment of U.S. exceptionalism. Many countries face terrorist
threats - Russia, China and India, for example - but if any
of these nations announced a general strategy of preven-
tive war as a means to deal with terrorism the U.S. would
undoubtedly be the first to object.

Still, the most glaring example of the U.S exceptional-
ism is not the case of Iraq. After demanding that the Serbi-
an war criminals should be submitted to the International
Criminal Court, the Bush administration demanded that
the governments of the EU agree to a blanket exemption
of all U.S. citizens from the jurisdiction of the very same
court. How irritating can you get?

Against Cutrone's claim that the cause of the occupa-
tion was not oil, but the fact that Iraq was a failed state, I'm
inclined to repeat the standard anti-war criticisms. What
about the control of Iraq oil fields, taking Iraq out of OPEC,
breaking the anti-Israeli Arab front, weakening the Saudi
oil monarchy and attempting to provoke a regime change
in Iran? How do these sound for reasons? And although it
could be said that Iraq was a failed state from the begin-
ning, it managed to create a series of relatively successful,
though certainly authoritarian, regimes between 1 958-
1991. It was the Gulf War that ruined the state of Iraq.
Again, the U.S. is cleaning up the mess it has itself created.

The original justifications [weapons of mass destruc-
tion, links to al-Qaeda) the Bush administration gave for
the occupation evaporated. Bush himself gave them up and
fell back to the general human rights-argument. Well, why
not? The key question is, however: how are the potential
object countries discursively hegemonized as the most
urgent countries to be intervened in? When the world is
being asked whether it endorses a particular intervention
or not, the decisive justifying step for unilateral action has
already been accomplished. When the question "would you
endorse an intervention in Iraq?" is on the agenda every-
where, the intervention is alreadyjustified. "Saddam is a
terrible dictator, so..." "Yes, but on the other hand..." Why
just Iraq, out of all the undemocratic states in the world?
Why not Columbia?

Now, do these points form a coherent whole? Well, yes.
it is not contradictory or opportunistic to oppose exception-
alism and to claim that the interventions are by and large
counterproductive as far as the first argument is regarded
as the primary one.

But what have I been doing here? Arguing like the
ultimate liberal democrat, presenting well-wishing argu-
ments for international co-operation? Have I forgotten
that the maintenance of order in global capitalism is and
remains "a bloody business", as Cutrone puts it? Well,
maybe. But is this to say that nothing matters until the
revolution comes?

I fully agree that the mainstream European critique is
double-faced: the USA is doing the dirtyjob for the Euro-
pean states while they can retain the position of a Hegelian
beautiful soul. And Cutrone may well remind me that he is
not actively endorsing the role of the U.S. in the scene of
international capitalism, he is just realistic. The Left should
acknowledge the facts of the situation, make correct analy-
sis and then conquer the situation, if possible.

But this is exactly where my [or Zizek's) central ques-
tion regarding Cutrone's reasoning comes in. His basic
presupposition is that the hegemonic position of the U.S.
in global capitalism is a fact - a fact to be understood,
analyzed and for the time being accepted, but definitely not
whimpered about. But are the "undiminished capacities" of
the U.S. really so indisputable?

I think Cutrone's argument testifies to his perverse

Wilsonianism. What if the military tours de force of the
U.S. are the obverse of its impotence? Has the U.S.
not been, until the recent financial crisis, the ultimate
consumer of the world economics? As its economics and
financial institutions have been dependent upon being
trusted by the rest of the world, maybe the overspending
and growing indebtedness of the U.S. have made feats
of strength a necessary prop for maintaining that trust?
Perhaps we have been witnessing a series of ultimately
fake military interventions by the U.S. against adversar-
ies known to be weak in order to maintain its continuing
financial credibility? Now that the bubble has burst,
shouldn't we just face the fact that the era of the U.S. is
just over?

As is well known, the U.S. is constantly fighting against
the dangers it has itself created. The examples have been
cited ad nauseam by the anti-war movement: the Taliban,
Bin Laden, Saddam etc. were all originally backed and
financed by the U.S. Not to mention that the Iraq interven-
tion has accelerated the nuclear programs of North Korea
and Iran and has made Iraq, instead of Afghanistan, the
training ground and operational base for jihadist terror-
ists. What ifallthis has notjust been unwise or contra-
final but bears testimony to a certain Hegelian cunning
of reason instead? Maybe the apparent counter-produc-
tivity of the US-interventions - the fact that they tend to
strengthen and even constitute in the first place the very
enemies supposed to be eliminated - tacitly serves as
a guarantee that the military power of the U.S. will be
needed forever?

I may be carrying my point about the non-intentional
conspiracy too far here, but perhaps the conservatives
did not even want [on the level of Rumsfeldian "unknown
knowns") to win the recent presidential elections. I mean,
what has the Republican strategy been after Reagan?
To let the debt rise to the utmost and then send for the
Democrats to deal with it. Enter Obama... IP

1 There is stlLl truth in this, although Finland has undergone its share
of neo-Liberal setbacks from the 9D'5 on as welL.

2 See e.g. http://www.rolLingstone.eom/politics/story/1 1717105/rob-
ert_f_kennedyjr wiU_the_next_e lectio n_be_hacked

3 It must be remembered that the Europeans have an "European
point of view" only in America. [This does not make it any Less real.) In
Europe there are only German, French, Polish, Finnish etc. perspec-
tives. The European Union does not help here - actually it is the ultimate
Other in Europe. Even the supporters-in-principle of the EU tend to
resent it a bit. Including me.

A There have been two occasions, again from the European perspec-
tive, when the American Dream has actually won when its bluff was
called: USA joining the WWII and the Obama winning the elections.
The Americans also have a strong point, of course, in emphasizing that
Nazism and Stalinism were quintessentially European phenomena.

5 The USA is the unchallengeable "capital" of urban aesthetic move-
ments, scenes of authentic popular culture, from bluesSjazz to Jewish
Hollywood, Dylan, hip hop etc. What would the modern world be without
these figures? A desert. The majority of Africans, Asians and Europeans
under sixty-five would agree on this, while hardly any one of them would
praise the USA for its record in international politics.

6 "We are betterthan Americans because we don't think we are better."

7 The "Europeans" are not so naive as to think that reliance on the
UN would solve a lithe problems of international politics. The UN rather
serves as a metonymy for the appeal for more multilateral processes of
decision, it is all about checks and balances, you know,,. And although
the claim that UN is weak and inefficient is indeed true, the attitudes
and actions of the USA have of course performatively contributed to this
state of affairs.

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MajAa^ sndA}e]c| aijx

The Platypus Review

lssue#11 /March 2009

Going it alone

Christopher Hitchens and the death of the left

Book Review: Cottee, Simon and Thomas Cushman leds.l. Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left.
New York: New York University Press, 2008.

Spencer A. Leonard

IF HISTORY DID NOT, as the conservative critic Francis
Fukuyama pronounced, come to end in 1989, this is be-
cause its politically relevant sense--as the self-realization
of freedom--it had already stopped. Even before the emer-
gence in recent decades of new geopolitical configurations
and institutional forms within global capitalism, a new and
unprecedented political situation was taking shape, one
which has severed the last threads of continuity connect-
ing the present with the long epoch of political emancipa-
tion that stretches back through modern socialism and the
labor movement to the Enlightenment and the great bour-
geois revolutions that came before. Yet, unlike Stalinism's
well-publicized collapse, the death of the long-ailing Left
in our time has gone largely unmarked. One exception to
this is the work of Christopher Hitchens, whose political
writings combine a partial recognition of this unprec-
edented new circumstance with an acutely symptomatic,
unconscious expression of the same.

When Hitchens publicly broke with the The Nation in
the aftermath of 9/1 1, the break was based on chiefly mor-
al grounds. The Left's anti-war arguments were, Hitchens
argued, "contemptible" and in "bad faith"; its authors were
corrupt "masochists" [104-8]. While Hitchens's defection
was widely condemned by the Left, few attended closely
to the moral form that it took, which is in many ways as
revealing as the substance of the debates it occasioned.
In Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the
Left [hereafter CHHC], editors Simon Cottee and Thomas
Cushman provide a handy single-volume Introduction to
this tussle on the Left, supplying both an ample selection
of Hitchens's writings and published Interviews, as well as
many criticisms by his erstwhile comrades. Through them
we relive something of the disorientation and struggle for
clarification on the Left that accompanied 9/1 1 and the
subsequent Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Though in
some respects a replay of debates around western inter-
vention In Bosnia in the 1990s, far more engaging Is the
near total discrediting of the existing Left that Hitchens
has accomplished writing as a moralist since.

Enlightenment on the Left

A scourge of the establishment, Hitchens was one of the
few journalists steeped In Marxism publishing in the mass
circulation English press throughout the 1 980s and 90s.
Coming out of the International Socialist tendency of Brit-
ish Trotskyism, he did not simply admire Marx or sympa-
thize with certain historical achievements of the socialist

Left; rather, he brought to the pages of The New States-
man, Harper's and The Atlantic the unique resources of a
sectarian Marxist political education. With the familiarity
he possessed of prevailing Intellectual habits and disposi-
tions and also of the actual composition of the various
popular front organizations that sprung up to oppose the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hitchens possessed unique
resources to undertake a thoroughgoing critique of the
contemporary Left. It Is the limitations of these same re-
sources, however, that ultimately diminished the force of
that critique. For while Hitchens was correct In his assess-
ment of the conservative and one-sided character of the
"leftist" critique of American hegemony. It was chimerical
to Imagine that one could both side with the Bush regime's
war and retain critical Independence from It.

Taking the last ten years of his output together,
Hitchens has been remarkably prolific, producing a steady
output of books and articles. (1] This Impressive writ-
ten output has gained Hitchens a mass audience, further
expanded by the steady schedule he maintains of television
and radio appearances, as well as high-profile public
debates. Neither specialized scholar nor think-tank wo nk,
Hitchens Is a rare breed: one who lives not simply by his
writing, but by a sustained attempt to analyze the present.
Hitchens and His Critics thus serves as a valuable selection
of writings from the years 2001-2005 when Hitchens began
to do this freeform, wholly Independent of party or clique.

To describe Hitchens's writings In CHHC as acts of
"apostasy" from the Left Is misleading. It Is better to read
them as authentic. If Inadequate, responses to the Intrac-
tability of contemporary circumstances. For this reason,
editors Cottee and Cushman locate Hitchens not among
the God-that-failed liberals, but rather "In the tradition
of Marx and the Frankfurt School." As they explain: "It Is
our belief that in Hitchens's recent political writings It Is
possible to discern one of the most powerful self-critiques
of the Western Left today. Hitchens Is. . . an essential ref-
erence point for the Left, and his criticisms demand to be
engaged with" [3-4]. While one might balk at the phrase

1 These are No One Left to Lie To [1999], Unacknowledged Legisla-
tion {2Q0O\. The Trials of Henry Kissinger [lOD'i], Letters to a Young
Contrarian [2[}Q^ hereafter LYC], Why Orwell flatters [2Q02 hereafter
WOM], 4 Long Short Wan The Postponed Liberation of Iraq [2003],
Love, Poverty, and War [2004 hereafter LPW], Thomas Jefferson:
Author of America [2005], Thomas Paine's Rights of f^an: A Biography
[2006], God is not Great [2007], and Is Christianity Good for the World:
A Debate [2008], as well as regular articles appearing in Slate, The
Nation, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic Monthly.

"Western Left" as foreign to Hitchens's Internationalist
disposition, Cottee and Cushman are nevertheless right to
point out that Hitchens did not so much abandon the Left,
as he was abandoned by It.

Still, the editors' introduction generates as much con-
fusion as clarity respecting Hitchens's leftism. For while
Hitchens cannot but mourn the collapse of the revolu-
tionary Left, Insofar as It stood for the project to abolish
capitalist social domination and realize human freedom,
Cottee and Cushman do not share this understanding of
the Left's fundamental commitments. So, It is hard to see
how they as non-Marxists comprehend Hitchens when
he says, "there is no longer a general socialist critique of
capitalism - certainly not the sort of critique that proposes
an alternative or a replacement. . . . [Still] I don't think
that the contradictions, as we used to say, of the system
are by any means all resolved" [1 69]. Be that as It may,
Hitchens's sense of the collapse of the Left Is true now In a
way that was not the case even for those who survived Into
the 1940s. Though certainly the first-generation Frankfurt
School theorists recognized that the rise and consolidation
of Stalinism and fascism In Europe prepared the ground
for It, the total extinction of the Left had to wait till the
second half of the 20"^ century. Hitchens is unmistakably
melancholy If not nostalgic when he says, "I am in a strong
position to promise you. . . [that] all talk [of a Trotsky-
ist revival] Is Idle. It's over" [181]. Yet, just as Cottee and
Cushman think JLirgen Habermas's liberalism represents
a continuation of the Frankfurt School's mid-century
project, they treat "the Left" as If It were a stable political
category. Hitchens, on the other hand, makes no claim to
represent an alternative form of Leftism. Instead, as he
says, "call me a neo-conservatlve If you must: anything Is
preferable to the rotten unprincipled alliance between the
former fans of the one-party state and the hysterical zealots
of the one-god one" ["At Last Our Lefties See the Light" The
Times of London online edition, 4/30/06]..

Breaking Left

Retrospectively Hitchens's break with the Left may be
seen to have been foreshadowed in his 1 9905 tirades
against Bill Clinton and his "lesser evillst" liberal sup-
porters. In those polemics, Hitchens argued that social
democracy had collapsed utterly, as had the salience of
the distinction between the Democrats and Republicans.
The Clinton presidency represented the triumph of a fully
managed, poll-driven, and lobbyist-directed politics. This
failure of mainstream politics was accompanied by a
general vulgarization and moral degradation. But these
developments were not wholly explicable in terms of
mainstream politics, but were rather the consequence of
the Left's collapse. This last point was never made explicit
at the time, so those writings failed to register unmistak-
ably Hitchens's sense of the epochal change that had
occurred, which was marked chiefly by Hitchens's own
turn from political analysis proper to something more akin
to 1 9*'' century morallsm. As he commented just prior to
9/11, "I don't have allegiances. . . anymore" [173]. But,
since the Left Is rarely targeted directly In the Clinton-era
writings, this period must be seen as prelude to what
would come after 9/11.

In the weeks and months following 9/1 1, Hitchens's
criticism of "the Left" resounded loudly on both sides of
the Atlantic In both the usual organs such as The Nation
and the Guardian as well as In more mainstream outlets
like the Los Angeles Times and the Independent. Hitchens
drove home the point that the Issue of "imperialism," as
understood for decades on the Left, had become irrel-
evant. The enemies of American imperialism In no sense
represented a more democratic future, nor would their
victory be likely to have desirable effects elsewhere. Mak-
ing the stakes plain, Hitchens averred, "capitalism, for all
Its contradictions. Is superior to. . . what bin Laden and
the Taliban stand for" [55]. As for U.S. military involve-
ment in Iraq, Hitchens supplements the arguments about
al-Qaeda's Islamist fascism with arguments drawn from
Iraqi Trotskylst Kanan Maklya to the effect that Saddam
Hussein's Ba'athlst regime was not only tyrannical but
represented a variety of modern-day "totalitarianism." In
response to Makiya's argument, Hitchens adds that the
U.S. was saddled with a "responsibility" to the people of
Iraq In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, when the U.S.
left Saddam's opponents In the lurch. He condemned as
both untenable and ill-conceived the continued enforce-
ment of no-fly zones and a crippling sanctions regime that
punished the population while allowing Hussein to main-
tain his hold on power Of course, nothing could be more
predictable than the U.S. Army "falling" to fight Hitchens's
war In Iraq [nor could greater "pressure" from the Left
have prompted them to do sol. Still, the American military,
as Hitchens pointed out In a debate with Tarlq All, was "not
militarily defeatable" In Iraq and "all moral and politi-
cal conclusions to be drawn from that should be drawn"
[http://www.democracynow.org/2004/10/12/] At any rate,
the critical thing about Hitchens's support for the war, as
CHHC demonstrates. Is the distance It gave him from the
rest of the Left.

Taking up cudgels against the likes of Tarlq All, Noam
Chomsky, Norman FInkelsteIn, bell hooks, Naomi Klein,
Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, Studs Terkel, and Howard
ZInn - the chief representatives of that political strain that
passes for "the Left" today -, Hitchens recognized that
Ba'athlst Iraq's steady disintegration and the emergence
Into plain view of Islamist fascism posed for them a di-
lemma they could not resolve with the conceptual and po-
litical resources at their disposal. The War on Terror Is not
Vietnam II, If only because the character of the enemy of
American imperialism Is so utterly changed. But Hitchens
does not possess critical resources the others lack. Con-
trary to what he likes to suggest, his support of America's
Invasion of Iraq Is no straightforward act of solidarity with
secular-socialist political parties Inside Iraq, such as the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Jalal Talabanl. Still, his
stand did effectively dramatize the disappearance of Left
internationalism. "When I first became a socialist," he
writes,

[...] the Imperative of international solidarity was the
essential If not defining thing, whether the cause was
popular or not. I haven't seen an anti-war meeting all
this year [2002] at which you could even guess at the ex-
istence of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam,

"Going at it alone" continues bellow

U.S. stimulus, continued from page 1

sessed the necessary dynamism to account for a growing
share of global output and was quintessentlally commit-
ted to some version of what can best be called "cornered
market" or "monopoly" capitalism backed by an ideology
of rugged individualism. So there Is a sense in which the
U.S. was, throughout much of Its history, preparing Itself
to take on the role of global hegemon. The only surprise
was that It took so long to do so and that It was the Second
rather than the First World War that led It finally to take up
the role leaving the inter-war years as years of multlpolar-
Ity and chaotic competing Imperial ambitions of the sort
that the NCIS report fears will be the situation in 2025.

The tectonic shifts now under way are deeply Influ-
enced, however, by the radical geographical unevenness
In the economic and political possibilities of responding
to the current crisis. Let me Illustrate how this uneven-
ness is now working by way of a tangible example. As the
depression that began In 2007 deepened, the argument
was made by many that a full-fledged Keyneslan solution
was required to extract global capitalism from the mess
It was In. To this end various stimulus packages and bank
stabilization measures were proposed and to some degree
taken up In different countries In different ways In the hope
that these would resolve the difficulties. The variety of
solutions on offer varied Immensely depending upon the
economic circumstances and the prevailing forms of politi-
cal opinion (pitting, for example, Germany against Britain
and France in the European Union]. Consider, however,
the different economic political possibilities In the United
States and China and the potential consequences for both
shifting hegemony and for the manner In which the crisis
might be resolved.

In the United States, any attempt to find an adequate
Keyneslan solution has been doomed at the start by a
number of economic and political barriers that are almost
Impossible to overcome. A Keyneslan solution would
require massive and prolonged deficit financing If It were
to succeed. It has been correctly argued that Roosevelt's
attempt to return to a balanced budget In 1937-8 plunged
the United States back into depression and that It was,
therefore. World War II that saved the situation and not
Roosevelt's too timid approach to deficit financing In the
New Deal. So even If the Institutional reforms as well as the
push toward a more egalitarian policy did lay the founda-
tions for the Post World War II recovery, the New Deal In
Itself actually failed to resolve the crisis In the United States.

The problem for the United States In 2008-9 Is that It
starts from a position of chronic indebtedness to the rest of
the world [it has been borrowing at the rate of more than
$2-bllllon a day over the last ten years or morel and this
poses an economic limitation upon the size of the extra
deficit that can now be Incurred. [This was not a serious
problem for Roosevelt who began with a roughly balanced
budget). There is also a geo-political limitation since the
funding of any extra deficit Is contingent upon the willing-

ness of other powers (principally from East Asia and the
Gulf States) to lend. On both counts, the economic stimulus
available to the United States will almost certainly be
neither large enough nor sustained enough to be up to the
task of reflating the economy. This problem Is exacerbated
by Ideological reluctance on the part of both political par-
ties to embrace the huge amounts of deficit spending that
will be required, ironically In part because the previous
Republican administration worked on Dick Cheney's prin-
ciple that "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter" As
Paul Krugman, the leading public advocate for a Keyneslan
solution, for one has argued, the $800-bllllon reluctantly
voted on by Congress In 2009, while better than nothing. Is
nowhere near enough. It may take something of the order
to $2-trlllion to do the job and that Is Indeed excessive
debt relative to where the U.S. deficit now stands. The only
possible economic option, would be to replace the weak
Keyneslanism of excessive military expenditures by the
much stronger Keyneslanism of social programs. Cutting
the U.S. defense budget in half (bringing It more In line
with that of Europe In relation to proportion of GDP) might
technically help but It would be, of course, political suicide,
given the posture of the Republican Party as well as many
Democrats, for anyone who proposed It.

The second barrier Is more purely political. In order to
work, the stimulus has to be administered In such a way
as to guarantee that It will be spent on goods and services
and so get the economy humming again. This means
that any relief must be directed to those who will spend
it, which means the lower classes, since even the middle
classes. If they spend It at all, are more likely to spend It
on bidding up asset values [buying up foreclosed houses,
for example), rather than Increasing their purchases of
goods and services. In any case, when times are bad many
people will tend to use any extra Income they receive to
retire debt or to save (as largely happened with the $600
rebate designed by the Bush Administration In the early
summer of 2008).

What appears prudent and rational from the standpoint
of the household bodes III for the economyat large (In
much the same way that the banks have rationally taken
public money and either hoarded it or used It to buy assets
rather than to lend). The prevailing hostility in the United
States to "spreading the wealth around" and to adminis-
tering any sort of relief other than tax cuts to individuals,
arises out of hard core neollberal Ideological doctrine
(centered In but by no means confined to the Republican
Party) that "households know best." These doctrines have
broadly been accepted as gospel by the American public
at large after more than thirty years of neollberal political
indoctrination. We are, as I have argued elsewhere, "all
neoliberals now" for the most part without even knowing
it. There Is a tacit acceptance, for example, that "wage
repression" - a key component to the present problem - Is
a "normal" state of affairs In the United States. One of the

three legs of a Keyneslan solution, greater empowerment
of labour, rising wages and redistribution toward the lower
classes Is politically Impossible In the United States at this
point In time. The very charge that some such program
amounts to "socialism" sends shivers of terror through the
political establishment. Labour Is not strong enough (after
thirty years of being battered by political forces) and no
broad social movement is In sight that will force redistribu-
tions toward the working classes.

One other way to achieve Keyneslan goals. Is to provide
collective goods. This has traditionally entailed invest-
ments In both physical and social Infrastructures (the WPA
programs of the 1930s Is a forerunner). Hence the attempt
to Insert Into the stimulus package programs to rebuild
and extend physical infrastructures for transport and com-
munications, power and other public works along with In-
creasing expenditures on health care, education, municipal
services, and the like. These collective goods do have the
potential to generate multipliers for employment as well
as for the effective demand for further goods and services.
But the presumption Is that these collective goods are, at
some point, going to belong to the category of "productive
state expenditures" [I.e. stimulate further growth) rather
than become a series of public "white elephants" which,
as Keynes long ago remarked, amounted to nothing more
than putting people to work digging ditches and filling
them In again. In other words, an Infrastructural invest-
ment strategy has to be targeted toward systematic revival
of three percent growth through, for example, systematic
redesign of our urban infrastructures and ways of life. This
will not work without sophisticated state planning plus an
existing productive base that can take advantage of the
new Infrastructural configurations. Here, too, the long prior
history of delndustrialization In the United States and the
Intense Ideological opposition to state planning (elements
of which were Incorporated into Roosevelt's New Deal and
which continued Into the 1960s only to be abandoned In the
face of the neollberal assault upon that particular exercise
of state power in the 1 980s) and the obvious preference for
tax cuts rather than infrastructural transformations makes
the pursuit of a full-fledged Keyneslan solution all but
Impossible In the United States.

In China, on the other hand, both the economic and
political conditions exist where a full-fledged Keyneslan
solution would Indeed be possible and where there are
abundant signs that this path will likely be followed. To be-
gin with, China has a vast reservoir of foreign cash surplus
and It Is easier to debt finance on that basis than It is with
a vast already existing debt overhang as Is the case In the
United States. It Is also worth noting that ever since the
mid 1 990s the "toxic assets" (the non performing loans) of
the Chinese Banks (some estimates put them as high as
40 per cent of all loans In 2000) have been wiped off the
banks' books by occasional Infusions of surplus cash from
the foreign exchange reserves. The Chinese have had a

long-running equivalent of the TARP program In the United
States and evidently know how to do It (even If many of the
transactions are tainted by corruption). The Chinese have
the economic wherewithal to engage In a massive deficit-
finance program and have a centralized state-financial
architecture to administer that program effectively If they
care to use It. The banks, which were long state owned,
may have been nominally privatized to satisfy WTO require-
ments and to lure In foreign capital and expertise, but they
can still easily be bent to central state will whereas In the
United States even the vaguest hint of state direction let
alone nationalization creates a political furor

There Is likewise absolutely no Ideological barrier to
redistributing economic largesse to the neediest sectors
of society though there may be some vested Interests of
wealthier party members and an emergent capitalist class
to be overcome. The charge that this would amount to
"socialism" or even worse to "communism" would simply
be greeted with amusement In China. But In China the
emergence of mass unemployment [at last report there
were thought to be some 20-mllllon unemployed as a re-
sult of the slow-down) and signs of widespread and rapidly
escalating social unrest will almost certainly push the
Communist Party to massive redistributions whether they
are Ideologically concerned to do so or not. As of early 2009,
this seemed to be directed In the first Instance to revital-
izing the lagging rural areas to which many unemployed
migrant workers have returned In frustration at the loss of
jobs In manufacturing areas. In these regions where both
social and physical infrastructures are lagging, a strong
Infusion of central government support will raise Incomes,
expand effective demand and begin upon the long process
of consolidation of China's Internal market.

There Is, secondly, a strong predilection to undertake
the massive Infrastructural investments that are still
lagging In China [whereas tax reductions have almost no
political appeal). While some of these may turn Into "white
elephants" the likelihood is far less since there Is still
an Immense amountofwork to be done to integrate the
Chinese national space and so to confront the problem of
uneven geographical development between the coastal
regions of high development and the Impoverished Interior
provinces. The existence of an extensive though troubled
Industrial and manufacturing base In need of spatial
rationalization, makes It more likely that the Chinese effort
will fall Into the category of productive state expenditures.
For the Chinese, much of the surplus can be mopped up in
the further production of space, even allowing for the fact
that speculation In urban property markets In cities like
Shanghai, as in the United States, Is part of the problem
and cannot therefore be part of the solution. Infrastruc-
tural expenditures, provided they are on a sufficiently large
scale, will go a long way to both mopping up surplus labour
and so reducing the possibility of social unrest, and again
boosting the internal market.

Going at it alone,

continued from above

Going at it alone, continued fronfi pages

U.S. stimulus, continued from above

Announcements

an opposition that was fighting for "regime change"
when both Republicans and Democrats were fawning
over Baghdad as a profitable client and geopolitical ally.
[105]

Those on the Left who tacitly defended Osama bin
Laden and Saddam Hussein did so because of an inherited
moral and intellectual rot the consequence of which was
that "Instead of internationalism, we find among the Left
now a sort of affectless, neutralist, smirking Isolation-
Ism" [108]. One manifestation of this was the anti-war
movement's willingness to bracket out of their calcula-
tions the fate of Iraqi Leftist or oppositionist parties and
trade unions -- or to condemn them as U.S. "stooges."
Groups like the ISO and Spartaclst League Ignore the his-
torical gulf that separates the current anti-war movement
from the movement opposing the Vietnam War by simply
recycling the slogans of that earlier struggle. Their claim
that "every blow struck against the imperialist occupiers
Is a blow In the Interests of workers and the oppressed
worldwide" has become a mantra by the muttering repeti-
tion of which they withdraw into senility. Of course, others
on the Left are more vulgar, hoping that an Iraqi quagmire
would allow for the emergence of Europe as a substantial
counter-hegemonic force (as, for Instance, In Habermas
and DerrI da's joint letter of May 31, 2003). Regarding such
Leftism, Hitchens remarks, "I am very much put In mind of
something from the opening of Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire
of Louis Bonaparte. It's not the sentence about the histori-
cal relation between tragedy and farce. It's the observation
that when people are learning a new language, they habit-
ually translate It back Into the one they already know" [55].
Unable to so much as describe the present, the Left has
lost Its currency for an entire generation. "Members of the
Left, along with the far larger number of squlshy 'progres-
sives,' have grossly failed to live up to their responsibility
to think; rather, they are merely reacting, substituting
tired slogans for thought" [57]. "Left conservatism," with
a long pedigree stretching back Into the 1960s, became
dominant by couching Itself in anti-imperialist language.
But, as Hitchens comments, "My Marxist training tells
me things don't remain the same. [These new, openly]
reactionary- left positions won't hold for long. They will
metamorphose Into reactionary-right ones" ['"Don't Cross
Over If You Have any Intention of Going Back'" Interview
with Danny Postel The Common Review 4:1, 7]. The merits
of this critique stand, regardless of Hitchens's opportunis-
tic support for the Iraq Wan

Rejecting the consensus view that the 1 960s New Left
represents a high-water mark of radical politics, Hitchens
argues that. In fact, the conservatlvism of today's pseudo-
Left derives from precisely that period:

If you look back to the founding document of the 60's
left, which was the Port Huron statement . . . you will eas-
ily see that It was In essence a conservative manifesto. It
spoke In vaguely Marxist terms of alienation, true, but It
was reacting to bigness and anonymity and urbanization,
and It betrayed a yearning for a lost agrarian simplicity. It

forgotwhat Marx had said, about the dynamism of capital-
ism and "the Idiocy of rural life."

All that endures today on "the Left" Is precisely this
anti-modern strain of the 1960s. Describing the route from
Port Huron to Seattle, Hitchens notes, "the anti-globaliza-
tion movement has started to reject modernity altogether,
to set its sights on laboratories and on the Idea of the
division of labor, and to adopt symbols from Fallujah as
the emblems of Its resistance" ["Where Aquarius Went,"
New York Times (online edition) 12/19/04]. If the New Left
grew old. It never betrayed the dubious Ideals of Its youth.
Hitchens captures the massive political and Intellectual
shift this has occasioned anecdotally: "Marx and Engels
thought that America was the great country of freedom
and revolution. . . [We] live In a culture where people's first
Instinct when you say [that] Is to laugh or to look bewil-
dered" [1 76-77]. After years of Pop-Front cozlness with
his "comrades" In "the movement," Hitchens finally broke
rank. And yet, Hitchens's defeat of his "Left" opponents, of
which CHHC leaves Its reader no doubt, never translated
Into what we might call a genuine political victory.

Hitchens's Marxism

The force of Hitchens's critique of the degenerate Left
In the wake of 9/1 1 derives In large measure, as argued
above, from his sectarian background which at least Im-
parted a deep aversion to uncritical solidarity. It Is this that
lends his account Its force. In other words. It is not simply
a matter of familiarity breeding contempt, but of the preci-
sion that comes from long study of the enemy. And yet,
the Instincts that allow him to register his Insights soon
come up against their own limits. For the current crisis
requires an active (and openly skeptical) re-engagement
with the history of the Left and the theoretical categories
of Marxism.

Hitchens's greatest shortcoming Is not the position he
has taken on Iraq, as this amounts chiefly to a confes-
sion of political futility. Nor Is It his bullying and hectoring
tone, which, though it occasionally rings false. Is typically
reserved for those who deserve it. Rather, his greatest
shortcoming Is in his sclerotic Marxism, often conceptu-
ally under-specified and indistinguishable from ahistorical
liberalism. For what Hitchens terms the "tenets of the
Left" require us only to recognize that "the materialist
conception of history has not been surpassed as a means
of analyzing matters," "there are opposing class Interests"
and "monopoly capitalism can and should be distinguished
from the free market and that It has certain fatal tenden-
cies" (LYC, 102). There Is nothing specifically Marxist about
such propositions.

Discussing the anti-Stalinist Marxists of the 1930s,
Hitchens says "these heroes. . . were forced to rely as
much on their own consciences. If not Indeed more, as on
any historical materialist canon" [LYC 98]. But the likes of
0. L. R. James, Victor Serge, and Trotsky are not merely
moral exemplars, and the "crimes" to which they bore wit-
ness were not simply criminal. They were political betray-

als opposed politically by a Marxism rooted In a definite
conception of capitalism as a form of social organization.
Any full account must go beyond discussing the bravery of
these tendencies to address that their emancipatory po-
tential. Hitchens exhorts readers so question the obvious
and call Into question the status quo, forwhich, he argues,
intellectual honesty and a will to truth are required. And
while this Is true, Hitchens only goes so far. Morality and
"principles" alone. Including "the conception of universal
human rights" to which he points as guiding "the next
phase or epoch" of Leftist politics are an Inadequate basis
on which to remount the sort of emancipatory politics to
which Hitchens Is unmistakably committed [LYC 136].

Hitchens's etiolated conception of Enlightenment
[under which Hitchens subsumes Marxist "historical
materialism") causes him to fall below the level of his own
insights. This can most readily be seen by a brief review of
Hitchens's 2002 treatment of George Orwell, Why Orwell
flatters [WOM]. This book's publication coincided with
and may be seen as explicating much of the basis for his
criticism of his former comrades. Hitchens's Orwell, It
is safe to say, stands In for the Trotskyism that came so
late to Britain, where most of those who would become
the beacons of the New Left did not actually break with
Stalinism In Trotsky's lifetime but much later, after the
1956 Hungarian uprising was crushed by the Soviet Union.
Orwell was "In contact with the small and scattered forces
of the Independent International Left" and this fact, that he
questioned Stalinism at a time in the history of the British
Left when It was extremely unpopular to do so. Is central
to why Orwell matters to Christopher Hitchens [WOM, 62].
As a fellow traveler of "the International of persecuted
oppositionists who withstood 'the midnight of the century'
- the clasping of hands of Hitler and Stalin" [WOM. 63], Or-
well was a confirmed leftist critic of the Left from at least
the time of his fighting on behalf of the Spanish Republic,
which he chronicled In his early work. Homage to Catalonia.
Orwell never discarded the commitments and Insights that
crystallized for him while fighting In Spain, since in his late
work Animal Farm "the alms and principles of the Russian
revolution are given face-value credit throughout: this Is
a revolution betrayed, not a revolution that Is monstrous
from Its Inception" [WOM 187]. Thus, while "the edifice
of [Orwell's] work. . . [is typically] Identified with sturdy
English virtues" [WOM. 63], it constitutes for Hitchens a
more valuable internationalist legacy than does that of
some figures more widely lionized on the British Left,
where the New Left Intellectuals' struggle to work through
the fraught legacy of the past was hobbled by the relatively
superficial de-Stalinization effect after 1 956. He therefore
skewers Raymond William's hatchet job on Orwell as
symptomatic of the same undigested Stalinism that then
also affected the New/ Left Review's editors, who In their
reverence toward Wlllams In the 1960s, failed to adequate-
ly digest earlier the struggles on the Left of the 1 930s.

But Hitchens, too, falls to work through the history
of the left. On the one hand, Hitchens Is adamant that

we regard as a victory for the anti-Stalinist New Left the
Velvet Revolutions that brought to an end "actually existing
socialism" In the former Warsaw Pact countries. Yet, on
the other hand, he recognizes that "once the Cold War
was over, there was a recrudescence of. . . totalitarianism
and. . . authoritarianism" [""Don't Cross Over If You have
any Intention of Going Back,'" 7]. It Is altogether unclear
just how Hitchens can view the 1990s as both a culminat-
ing revolutionary moment and as a period of the revival of
totalitarianism.

Retreat to morallsm

The Insights Hitchens develops respecting the history of
the Left with reference to Orwell are valuable and, In many
Instances, merit further elucidation. The difficulty arises
In trying to address such matters in the moral terms on
which Hitchens bases his analysis, as for Instance when
Hitchens attempts to characterize the European fascism
of the 1 930s and 40s In terms of "arrogance," "bully-
ing," "greed," "wickedness," and "stupidity" [WOM. 7].
Such moral and Intellectual flaws have, after all, plagued
humankind throughout Its history, and for this reason
alone they provide an Inadequate basis for conceptual-
izing something so distinctly and exclusively modern as
fascism. Similarly, leftist politics, while It may be rooted
at the individual level In a certain moral Impulse, can
never be guided by that impulse alone. While Hitchens's
expressions of moral disapproval are in themselves un-
objectionable and Indeed often rhetorically powerful, they
hardly suffice as categories of political analysis. Rather,
such analysis requires a theoretical grasp of social and
historical circumstances, the abstract character of which
necessitates theory. As Hitchens himself acknowledges,
"I became a socialist . . . [as an] outcome of studying his-
tory" [1 68]. In other words, Marxian theory Is necessary to
actually grasp the ongoing transformation of society. The
power of facing unpleasant facts that Hitchens associates
with Orwell is scarcely sufficient If the aim Is elaborate a
politics rooted In a critical grasp of the present. Hitchens
knows full well that "a purely moral onslaught on capital-
ism and empire would be empty sermonizing" ["The Grub
Street Years," The Guardian 6/1 6/07], and yet he seems to
think an Increasingly moral rhetoric to be adequate for
contemporary critical purposes.

Stefan CollinI (in a 2003 essay strangely omitted from
the volume under review) Is no doubt right to balk [or
chuckle) at the machismo of the ostentatiously hard-
drinking, chain-smoking, author of the piece "Why Women
Aren't Funny." But, what Is curious Is the evidence CollinI
adduces of Hitchens's mascullnism, his commitment to
being "right about which way the world ... Is going, right
about which policies will work and which regimes are
wicked; right about the accuracy of one's facts and one's
stories; and right when so many others, especially well-
regarded or well-placed others, are demonstrably wrong"
[Stefan CollinI, "'No Bullshit' Bullshit" London Review of
Books 25:2 (1/23/03), online edition]. If Hitchens falls In

this enterprise. It Is not because of his masculinlst folly,
nor. Indeed, because of the limitations of his talent, intel-
lect or Instincts, but because the world Itself has become
opaque. This, and the Impulse toward being right -- at
least against the "Left" -- Is what has led Hitchens to shill
for the American warmongers. The old habit of choosing
sides betrays Hitchens when the task requires more than
simply making compromises and choosing the lesser evil,
but actually critically confronting a situation In which there
Is nothing to choose. While Colllnl's chastising as "mas-
culinlst" Hitchens's commitment to being right when so
many others are politically wrong amounts to little more
than the imposition of a thought- taboo. It Is nevertheless
undeniable that, for the present, the formulation of "a
political line" Is impossible. This Is not because of the In-
herent folly or masculism of such an attempt, but Is rather
a consequence the "world's" Incoherence when the left Is
dead. Hitchens's polemics would seem to Imply an Inde-
pendent position, but the impossibility of this Is precisely
where the contemporary circumstance of the death of the
left must be registered.

Hitchens's "return" to morallsm In the 1990s and 200s
Is coupled with a nascent sense of historical regression,
which he understands as a return to the Enlightenment
and a replay of bourgeois revolution. Thus Hitchens's most
recent writings on the Enlightenment, American Revolu-
tion, and atheism stem from his sense of the need for a
renewal of "the war for Enlightenment values" [213]. As
early as 2002 Hitchens wrote, "as the third millennium
gets under way, and as the Russian and Chinese and
Cuban revolutions drop below the horizon. It Is possible
to argue that the American revolution, with Its promise of
cosmopolitan democracy. Is the only 'model' revolution
that humanity has left to it" [WOM 105]. But In the 2005-08
publications that grew out of this conviction Hitchens flat-
tens out much of what remained suggestive In the earlier
polemical writings, such as those contained in CHHC. For
Instance, In his recent non-fiction best-seller God is Not
Great. Hitchens Improbably portrays the struggle against
contemporary religious fascisms as a mere continua-
tion of the Enlightenment tussle with irrationality. As If
al-Qaeada's "medievalism" were a relic of the unscientific
feudal past! At this point, rationality surrenders to dogma
In the name of the Enlightenment and Hitchens's recogni-
tion of political regression threatens to transform itself
into the idee fixe of a crank who has forgotten that the
argument with religion Is the beginning, not the end, of the
ruthless criticism of everything existing. Adopting a more
sympathetic approach towards these more recent works
requires reading them against the grain to argue not only
that the self-described left today Is entirely past saving
and needs only to be retired, but also that the project of
re-constituting the left is best advanced today through an
engagement with those drawn to (and encountering the
limits of) liberalism. IP

These completely different opportunities to pursue a
full-fledged Keyneslan solution as represented by the con-
trast between the United States and China have profound
International implications. If China uses more of Its finan-
cial reserves to boost Its Internal market, as It Is almost
certainly bound to do for political reasons, so It will have
less Left over to lend to the United States. Reduced pur-
chases of U.S. Treasury Bills will eventually force higher
Interest rates and Impact U.S. Internal demand negatively
and, unless managed carefully, could trigger the one thing
that everyone fears but which has so far been staved off:
a run on the dollar A gradual move away from reliance on
U.S. markets and the substitution of the Internal market In
China as a source of effective demand for Chinese Industry
will alter power balances significantly (and, by the way, be
stressful for both the Chinese and the United States). The
Chinese currency will necessarily rise against the dollar
(a move that the U.S. authorities have long sought but
secretly feared) thus forcing the Chinese to rely even more
on their Internal market for aggregate demand. The dyna-
mism that will result within China (as opposed to the pro-
longed recession conditions that will prevail In the United
States) will draw more and more global suppliers of raw
materials Into the Chinese trade orbit and lessen the rela-
tive significance of the United States In International trade.
The overall effect will be to accelerate the drift of wealth
from West to East In the global economy and rapidly alter
the balance of hegemonic economic power The tectonic
movement in the balance of global capitalist power will
Intensify with all manner of unpredictable political and
economic ramifications in a world where the United States
will no longer be In a dominant position even as it possess-
es significant power The supreme Irony, of course, is that
the political and Ideological barriers In the United States to
any full-fledged Keyneslan program will almost certainly
hasten loss of U.S. dominance In global affairs even as the
elites of the world (Including those In China) would wish to
preserve that dominance for as long as possible.

Whether or not true Keyneslanism in China [along with
some other states in a similar position) will be sufficient to
compensate for the Inevitable failure of reluctant Keynes-
lanism In the West Is an open question, but the unevenness
coupled with fading U.S. hegemony may well be the pre-
cursor to a break up of the global economy Into regional
hegemonic structures which could just as easily fiercely
compete with each other as collaborate on the miserable
question of who Is to bear the brunt of long-lasting depres-
sion. That Is not a heartening thought but then thinking of
such a prospect mlghtjust awaken much of the West to
the urgency of the task before It and get political leaders to
stop preaching banalities about restoring trust and confi-
dence and get down to doing what has to be done to rescue
capitalism from the capitalists and their false neollberal
Ideology. And If that means socialism, nationalizations,
strong state direction, binding International collaborations,
and a new and far more Inclusive (dare I say "democratic")
International financial architecture, then so be it. IP

The Platypus Affiliated Society hosts open weekly reading
groups, film screenings, and coffee breaks In Chicago,
New York City, and Boston. For further Information (time,
location, reading material) please visit:

www.platypusi 91 7. org

Platypus ra Left forum 2009:
April 17-19. 2009 INYCI

www.leftforum.org/2009

Dialectics of Defeat:

Towards a Tf)eory of Historical Regression

The panelists will be asked to evaluate significant mo-
ments in the progressive separation of theory and practice
In the twentieth and twenty-first century history of Leftist
politics: 1917/1918-1923 [James Vaughn); 1933-1939
(Richard Rubin); 1968 (Atiya Khan); and the present, 2001-
2009 (Spencer Leonard). Each panelist will be asked to
consider the following questions: How was the problem of
relating theory to practice, and practice to theory, politi-
cally dealt with in each historical moment? How did these
political actions extend the widening divergence of theory
and practice? And, how do the historical failures of Leftist
politics effect the possibilities for Leftist politics today.

A panel discussion with:

Atiya Khan, Ph. D. candidate. University of Chicago, De-
partment of History

Spencer Leonard, Ph. D. candidate. University of Chicago,
Department of History

Richard Rubin, Platypus Affiliated Society

James Vaughn, Assistant Professor, University of Texas
Austin, Department of History

Chair: Benjamin Blumberg, Platypus Affiliated Society

Politics of the Contemporary Student Left:
Hopes and Failures

This panel alms to explore and critically reflect upon the
politics of two of the largest and most successful Left
student organizations of recent times: the new Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS) and United Students
Against Sweatshops (USA5). The panelists will engage
these organizations by examining the various perspectives
currently Influencing them, and explore how these Ideas
affect their means and ends. This requires us to delve Into
the history of Left student activism, as well as the history
of the Left as a whole. We hope this panel will not only
provide insight Into the failures of the student Left, but
also begin a serious discussion within these organizations
and the Left at-large of what the revolutionary potential of
such struggle can be.

A panel discussion with:

Atlee McFellln, Students for a Democratic Society, New
School Radical Student Union

Pam Nogales, Platypus [New York)

0. J. Pereira Dl Salvo: former organizer for United Stu-
dents Against Sweatshops

Laurie Rojas, Platypus (Chicago), former member of Stu-
dents for a Democratic Society

Chair: Alexander L. Hanna: former organizer for United
Students Against Sweatshops